The Death of Rock is the Story of Rock, or, the Pen is Mightier Than the Power Chord

At the conference “Re•pre•sent•ing Rock,” held at Duke University in the spring of 1997, Lawrence Grossberg, the Morris Davis Distinguished Professor of Communication Studies and Cultural Studies at the University of North Carolina, made in person the claim that he had been making more and more forcefully in print since 1984: that “rock’s conditions of possibility have been transformed so radically as to suggest that rock’s operating logic might no longer be either effective or possible”—that is, in vernacular terms, “rock & roll is dead.” ¹ To say that this verdict surprised his audience would be a gross understatement; various attendees of the conference had come by plane, train, and automobile to discuss their research on Stereolab, U2, Fugazi, Polly Jean Harvey, Radiohead—artists and bands generally thought not to be quite dead yet. Indeed, the first night of the conference featured a gig by the Chapel Hill band and indie sweethearts Superchunk, and the closing night featured a performance by a clearly undead Jon Langford, founding member of the British punk band the Mekons. (Sandwiched in between these was a reading by late-’70s New York punk figure Richard Hell; now, he might actually have been dead.)